Last Call : While Strawberry Waits for Phone to Ring, Gooden Makes a Connection With Yankees

TAMPA, Fla. —  The road to Cooperstown ended in a neon haze for the New York Mets’ two young superstars. Alcohol and cocaine became addictive roadblocks.

“Forget baseball,” Dwight Gooden is saying, sitting in the spring clubhouse of the New York Yankees here.

“It’s probably a miracle that I’m alive and sitting anywhere. I have a second chance, and I intend to take advantage of it.”

At 31, suspended from baseball in 1995 for violations of his after-care drug program, a winner of three major league games in the last two years, Gooden returns amid an aura of optimism, penciled in as the Yankees’ No. 3 or No. 4 starter.

For former Met teammate Darryl Strawberry, there is no such optimism in regard to his baseball future.

At 33, still facing legal and financial problems, his ability and availability in the last four years diminished by recurring battles with substance abuse, Strawberry sits by a phone that doesn’t ring.

He is out of work, with no promise that will change, and while those close to him suspect he is being blackballed, Strawberry says by phone he isn’t frustrated or bitter.

“The important thing is that I know I’m going to make it in life, and I have to stay focused on that,” he said. “I have to keep my head in the right direction.

“It’s tough looking at the pictures of spring training and knowing in my heart I can still play, but I don’t blame anybody but myself [for his current situation]. I’ve let people down my whole life, but mostly it’s myself I’ve let down.

“I mean, after everything I’ve done, I can’t be envious or bitter about somebody else who’s made mistakes getting another chance. I know I’ve had a lot of chances already, and as much as I’d like another, that I’d give almost anything for one more, I know there seems to have been a backlash from people who think I’ve had enough.”

The scenario might have brought Strawberry and Gooden back to New York as members of the team from the Bronx, reunited in the rehabilitation of their lives and careers, but the Yankees didn’t pick up Strawberry’s 1996 option after he appeared in 32 games with them in 1995.

“I don’t understand it,” Gooden said of Strawberry’s unemployment. “You look at the rosters of the various clubs, and it’s obvious Darryl has to fit in somewhere.

“I think he’s got a lot of baseball left in him, but too many general managers are going by what they read and hear rather than getting to know the guy.

“I mean, from what everyone has said, the [Boston] Red Sox were thinking of signing him, but so many fans wrote letters telling them not to, that they backed off. If the fans got to know him, I don’t think they’d be writing.

“It’s sad. Our stories are so similar. Darryl was just more vocal with the Mets than I was, and maybe that’s working against him now. Maybe it would have been better for both of us if I had been the vocal one. Who knows now?”

STRAW

Boston, despite denials by General Manager Dan Duquette, is still a possibility for Strawberry. The Seattle Mariners also expressed interest in Strawberry, then backed off, signing Luis Polonia to play left field. Luis Polonia?

“I hate to say there’s a conspiracy or Darryl is being blackballed,” said Eric Grossman, the New York-based lawyer handling his pursuit of a baseball job. “I appreciate that clubs may have a legitimate concern about what the fans feel about a certain player, but they also have an obligation to put the best team they can on the field.

“Here’s a guy who has hit more than 300 home runs and went to Puerto Rico this winter to show what he could do and impressed every scout who saw him. He’s paid his debt to society and baseball, but he’s still being deprived of an opportunity. Something is going on.”

Perhaps, but Strawberry has appeared in only 136 major league games in the last four years. It may be difficult for clubs to gauge what he might do over a full season. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner provided shelter last year after Strawberry blew a 1994 opportunity with the San Francisco Giants through violations of his after-care program.

Buck Showalter, the Yankee manager in ‘95, wasn’t happy with the signing, but Strawberry was a model citizen amid his irregular employment. He appeared in 32 games, batting .276 with three home runs after an extended stay in triple A.

The Yankees paid him $750,000, but refused to exercise a $1.8-million option despite Strawberry’s six home runs in nine games in Puerto Rico, after which he returned to his Rancho Mirage home convinced the Yankees had given up on him.

Bob Watson, the Yankees’ general manager, said keeping Strawberry didn’t make sense. “It had nothing to do with character or any baggage Darryl might still be carrying,” Watson said. “We already had a switch-hitting DH [Ruben Sierra], and I was looking to sign a leadoff type left fielder [acquiring Tim Raines].

“If we had re-signed Darryl it would have complicated an already crowded situation. I mean, Darryl’s desire is still there and he probably has enough bat, but I sent Gene Michael and Dick Williams to Puerto Rico to look at him, and they both felt that it didn’t look like he could play a lot of defense, which translated to a big salary for a part-time player who might not have been happy in that role. We’re apparently not the only club to make that decision and evaluation.”

Saying he was surprised and disappointed by the Yankees’ thinking, Strawberry works out at a gym near his desert home, takes batting practice against high school and college pitchers and regularly attends support group meetings.

“If it happens for me I’ll be ready, but in the meantime I’ve cleared my mind of the alcohol and drugs that had become a lifestyle, and I’ve centered my life on church and family,” he said, referring to his second wife, Charisse, and their two children: Jordan, 2, and Jade, 1.

In the meantime as well, his troubles linger. The Yankee rejection has been compounded by his mother’s battle with cancer, the recent death of his attorney and acknowledged father figure, Bill Goodstein, and ongoing legal problems with the IRS and his ex-wife, Lisa, exacerbating alleged financial woes.

In January, Strawberry pleaded not guilty to one count of willful failure to provide child support and two counts of failure to obey a court order to make support payments for the two children from his first marriage: Darryl Jr., 10, and Diamond Nicole, 7. Lisa Strawberry contended that her former husband owes more than $370,000 in back payments.

Strawberry has a March 6 trial date and could draw a year in jail if convicted, but Milton Grimes, his Los Angeles attorney, said he is optimistic the case will be dismissed. He said Strawberry is behind on support payments, but not nearly as much as his former wife contends.

Lisa Strawberry was awarded $80,000 a month in child and spousal support when their stormy marriage ended in October 1993. That figure was later adjusted to $35,000, but Grimes said “at this point Darryl is having a difficult time paying $35,000 a month. He wants to provide for his children, he recognizes that responsibility, but he doesn’t have a job and that has to be a consideration in reevaluating what he can pay.”

Grimes said that Strawberry also owes more than $100,000 to the IRS, stemming from the felony charges that he evaded taxes on income from 1980 card shows and promotional appearances. Strawberry was sentenced last April to three years’ probation, six months of house confinement and ordered to pay about $350,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties.

“I’ve made mistakes and run up some big bills,” Strawberry said. “I need to play to get back on my feet, but I want to play again because I love the game, not because I need the money.”

Strawberry made $7.2 million in a six-year contract with the Mets and $20.25 million in a five-year contract with the Dodgers.

But a source with the players’ union said:

“It may be hard for people to believe, but Darryl has legitimate financial problems. He had huge taxes over the years, paid an enormous agent’s fee [about $700,000 from the Dodger contract to former representative Eric Goldschmidt], lived a high lifestyle and paid a heavy price for the divorce [Lisa Strawberry received three luxury cars, a house in Encino and $300,000 in addition to the monthly support].”

The heaviest price of all may have been the albatross of those great expectations.

He was the National League’s rookie of the year in 1983, at 21. Gooden succeeded him a year later, at 19.

The players’ union now holds seminars for the most promising young players on dealing with money, the media and travel, but there was nothing then for Strawberry and Gooden.

“I hold myself accountable for everything that’s happened,” Strawberry said. “I take full responsibility for what I did. I’m not crying about it, but me and Doc were two young stars who came to New York with expectations that were extremely high.

“I don’t think any other two players in any sport came to New York at that age with expectations so high. The pressure was enormous, and there was no one to say, ‘This is the right way and this is the wrong way.’ It was a partying town and a partying team and I thought this is the way big leaguers do it.”

Booze, drugs, women. A debilitating litany.

“You know,” said Strawberry, “I was sitting around the other day and actually went through a box of my old baseball cards, turning them over, looking at the numbers on the back, a lot of them pretty good. But I couldn’t help thinking how much better they should have been and how much better they would have been if I knew then all the things I know now.”

DOC

Gooden opens up as he is encouraged to do by his counselor and his 12-step sponsor and those who share their lives during the Narcotics Anonymous meetings he attends almost daily. He talks about the denials of the past and how beer lead to vodka and vodka to cocaine and how he remembers being so strung out in hotel rooms on the road that he would look in a mirror and see psychedelic images, nightmare visions of Dwight Eugene Gooden being carried away on a stretcher.

“I always thought fun meant going out to drink and do drugs,” he said at his locker. “I’ve learned that it’s more fun to wake up without a hangover. I’m having fun now, real fun. I’m dealing with reality. I’m living life instead of living a lie.”

The new Yankee complex is 25 minutes from where Gooden lives in St. Petersburg. Some of his most infamous substance-related incidents have happened here, vulnerable to friends who really weren’t and places he should have avoided. Gooden shakes his head.

“This had nothing to do with Tampa or St. Petersburg or New York,” he said. “It had everything to do with me. I brought on my own problems. I’m still looking at the roots of that, but I do know I let too many people have a piece of me, and that has to stop. I have a responsibility to myself and the people who have put their faith in me and a lot of people who are watching how I react to this opportunity. If I can come back, it may help a lot of other people do the same.”

It is all part of the reason Gooden rejected other offers to sign with the Yankees.

“For me, the Mets era was finished, but I felt that I had some unfinished business in New York,” he said. “It’s still New York, but a fresh start.”

Gooden will receive $1.15 million in 1996. The Yankees have an option on 1997 at $2 million and 1998 at $3 million.

He went to Puerto Rico about the same time Strawberry did and pitched 14 1/3 innings with a 1.17 earned-run average, striking out 11 and prompting the offers.

It was almost a decade ago, certainly another lifetime, that Gooden, a year after succeeding Strawberry as rookie of the year, became the youngest pitcher to win the Cy Young Award, then became the only pitcher to strike out 200 or more batters in each of his first three major league seasons.

He hasn’t pitched in a major league game since June 24, 1994, and is also coming off arthroscopic shoulder surgery, but he has been reaching the low 90s with his fastball and still classifies himself as a power pitcher who is working on a changeup and cut fastball to add movement and expand his repertoire.

“People say he’s a question mark, but I don’t buy that,” Manager Joe Torre said. “I think he’s going to come up big for us. I’m not saying he’s going to win 20, but I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t win 12 or more. The thing I see is that he’s totally relaxed and enjoying himself.”

Said David Cone, a former Met teammate now with the Yankees: “I see a look in Doc’s eyes I haven’t seen since the mid-’80s. He’s hungry and throwing hard again.”

Gooden says he appreciates that Torre has already accorded him a place in the rotation because he can work on refinements without having to impress anyone during the spring.

Said Yankee consultant Ray Negron, a former agent and longtime Gooden friend: “There was a time during this whole process when a lot of what Doc said was totally bull, but now there’s a genuine confidence and sense of reality. I’m here for him to lean on if need be, but he doesn’t seem to need it.”

The recovery is never over, however. There are days, Gooden says, when he looks at those iced beers in the chest of a convenience store and thinks how nice it would taste, before reaching for a soft drink--and maybe the phone to work through the temptation with his counselor or sponsor.

“You just have to stay focused and go on,” Gooden said in the spring of his return to baseball, the spring in which a former teammate named Strawberry still hopes baseball provides a reason to reach for the phone.